The ultimate weakness of violence
is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today's newspaper headlines and feature news stories twist my insides, a viral, spreading sadness that seems to grow all too frequently lately. Charleston, South Carolina. A small group of people attacked as they gathered in a safe haven, praying and seeking togetherness. Three men and six women dead, children left without a parent, families missing brothers, sisters, grandparents, a team left without a coach, a flock left without their shepherds. I have read that the families of people who have died are remaining strong. My heart breaks for this mourning community, and I pray that they can hold onto a thread of peace, but I wonder, if it were me, would the descending spiral of violence be adding a deeper darkness to my own night? Or would I be able to drive out hatred, even through my pain. I do not know.
I struggle to understand the depth of darkness this gunman harbored when he entered that church, a historic church founded by Denmark Vesey over a century ago, and sat through an hour of the service before his violence began. I feel the tendril roots of history reaching out to me, begging to be understood, unraveled, resolved. But I know that this crime was not rooted in rational thought. This hate crime was perpetrated by a young man who had some ugly drugs on his person, who spouted insane nonsense about a world being taken over, and who drove away in his car adorned by the Confederate flag. Some say this is simply the symbol for pride in the south; the stars and bars adorn the South Carolina capitol building even now as the state flag, but what pride is there is a territory being so dedicated to the institution of slavery that they’d split from their founding nation? I know I can't make sense of this. But I can at least learn a little more and appreciate the life of the place where it happened, and the collective, cultural life of the people who are suffering.
According to a 2013 article in People's World, the 1822 Charleston judicial system condemned Vesey as "the author, and original instigator" of a "diabolical plot...to trample on all laws, human and divine; to riot in blood, outrage, rapine...and conflagration, and to introduce anarchy and confusion in their most horrid forms." He was executed for the unpardonable crime of wanting so badly to see his fellow men, his children and wife, free, of wanting them to escape bondage and abuse, that he attempted to organize a violent rebellion. According to both trial reports and secondhand accounts long after the fact, the landowning, slave owning leaders of the town could not comprehend why a free person of color would possibly risk so much to mount a rebellion. They owed it to the confusion caused in the minds of blacks due to the debate in Congress over the Missouri Compromise. Thomas Wentworth Higgins, an abolitionist several decades later, though, cast a different light on Vesey's actions in his 1861 article in The Atlantic, where he refers to Vesey as the "missionary" of the "insurrection which threw the whole slavery question open to the public."
As I grapple with history and current events, with the ugly past and the looming hopelessness on CNN and Facebook feeds, I wonder about the role violence plays in history, in bringing about change...in forcing the hands of fate to shuffle and redeal the cards. I wonder if it is the necessary dark side of light, or, if Reverend King so poetically stated, a descending spiral. I, too, am committed to nonviolence. I, too, have stood against violent protests, looting, fighting on the streets. On a more personal level, for the majority of my life, I've avoided conflict and sought common ground, favored strategy over reflexive, defensive attacks. I teach children peaceful resolution, consensus building, and the power of synergy and difference. But I do wonder...Was Malcolm X's call for self preservation as powerful as Reverend King's teachings of passive resistance? They shared a vision of equality, but were different in so many ways. I love this lesson which helps illustrate their similarities and differences. Did they complement each other in their different approaches? In order for one to be successful, did the other need to show its face as well?
As an 8th grade Catholic school girl, there was no topic that captivated my attention more than the story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. The idea that human beings, with feelings and thoughts, with loves and heartaches, were trapped, denied freedom and forced to work in terrible conditions, the idea that a small child would be ripped from his mother's side and sold to another owner or that overseers would whip the tender flesh of another human being, disgusted me. The bravery that Harriet showed in making nineteen visits back into the danger zone, leading over 300 fugitives to freedom including her own aged parents, knowing full well what awaited her if she was caught, inspired me. The kindness, creativity and boldness of the abolitionists who believed so fervently in the universality of human dignity and equality that they violated the U.S. Constitution, risked charges of treason, and offered their food, homes, barns and even carriages to hide runaway freedom seekers, filled my stomach with a floating feeling I can only call hope. There was a romanticism about the nighttime flight, the chase, following the northern star to the Promised Land.
Sadly, I didn't learn about the larger movement to end slavery or even know the word abolitionist until I was actually tasked with teaching it over 5 years ago. I definitely didn't understand that reaching the Promised Land did not secure freedom from fugitive slave catchers, and that even blacks with papers proving the freedom were not necessarily safe from kidnappers, as in the case of Solomon Northup, author of Twelve Years a Slave and many, many others. One of the joys of teaching middle school is the constant need to continue educating myself, learning more. So for those who don't know, an abolitionist, especially before the Civil War, refers to someone who worked to abolish or end the practice of slavery. Many abolitionists were escaped slaves who had made their way to freedom, like Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth and William Wells Brown. Others were free blacks who wanted all blacks to enjoy the same freedoms, while others still were white men and women who felt the deep conviction that all people deserved the same freedoms.
A great deal of people within the abolitionist movement practiced the Quaker religion. Within the Quaker religion, it was universally accepted that, as the leaders told members in 1754, "To live in ease and plenty, by the toil of those whom violence and cruelty have put in our power, is neither consistent with Christianity nor common justice." To the Quakers, it was essential that their protests were non-violent, though. While the church did not require that members subvert the law, Quakes had a long history of non-violent civil disobedience stretching back to the 1600's in England. Not only that, Quakers did not believe in violence of any kind, not even in self-defense. Quakers felt it was their duty not only to abolish slavery, but also to educate freed blacks, to create a society in which all were respected. There were different approaches to bringing this about. For example, the American Colonization Society supported gradual emancipation of slaves and black emigration.
Militant Abolitionism, on the other hand, called for the immediate end to slavery. Leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison passionately spoke out against not only slavery, but also the Constitution, which he labeled a pro-slavery document. Garrison, like Quaker leaders, is also widely recognized for his personal conviction that emancipation should come through moral suasion, not through violence. There is ample research, however, to indicate that he understood the gray area in the middle, that he understood the shadow side. These series of essays explore Garrison's writings on use of force, voting, and more.
In particular, he writes a farewell letter to John Brown, leader of the bloody raid and attempted slave rebellion at Harper's Ferry in 1859, addressing him as “My brave and unfortunate friend.” Brown besieged the state troops and intended to arm a slave revolt with the arsenal they possessed. Unfortunately for him, Colonel Robert E. Lee and U.S. Marines stormed in and captured Brown (and killed most of his men). He was put on trial, found guilty of treason (like Denmark Vesey) and executed. Unlike Vesey, though, Brown's raid is considered by many people to be one of the triggers of the Civil War, which led to the eventual emancipation of all of the slaves. Garrison, outspoken supporter of peaceful civil resistance, urges fellow abolitionists to show support for Brown and his followers on the day of his execution.
On my trip this summer, I intend to gather research to put John Brown on trial. I'm curious what my students will decide, when faced with the primary source evidence and a timeline showing the before and afters. I always love a good trial. Was Brown a hero for this bloody attack? Was he a traitor? Is violence warranted when it leads to the greater good?
And how do we react when irrational people, filled with hate, not justice, use violence to support their warped view of the world? And how do we find our way to a more just world, where this kind of senseless act doesn’t even occur?
